Visual post-occupancy evaluation of a restorative garden using virtual reality photography: Restoration, emotions, and behavior in older and younger people

Abstract

Natural environments have a restorative effect from mental/attentional fatigue, prevent stress, and help to revitalize psychological and physical resources. These benefits are crucial for promoting active aging, which is particularly relevant given the phenomenon of population aging in recent decades. To be considered restorative, green spaces have to meet specific requirements in ecological and psychological terms that can be assessed through Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE), a multimethod approach commonly used by environmental psychologists and landscape architects after construction to evaluate the design outcomes from the users’ perspective. Generally, POEs consist of surveys and/or interviews accompanied by more or less structured observations of onsite users’ behavior. Despite this, various practical constraints can prevent physical access to the renovated area (e.g., weather conditions, time/resources limits, health issues, bureaucratic constraints). Exploiting digital tools for such an assessment can be a crucial support in such circumstances. The current study presents the visual POE of a restorative garden for older adults in Milan, Italy. We developed a web application, that includes the exp-EIA© patented method, which allows participants to virtually explore a visual simulation of the environment and provide their feedback. We identified 3 representative viewpoints in the redeveloped garden differing from each other for the functions and the design principles that inspired the transformation. For each point of view, we created 360° Virtual Reality photographs, that can be navigated by looking around, i.e., panning, from the standing point of each view. In connection to each virtual scene, a survey was conducted (N = 321). The focus was the psychological experience related to each viewpoint, assessed with two psychometric scales investigating the constructs of emotions (pleasure and arousal) and restoration (fascination, being away, coherence, scope, and environmental preference); such information is integrated with behavioral aspects, including the main activities prefigured by participants and their visual exploration of the VR photography. The results of the virtual exploration show that the garden is perceived as restorative, with a more intense effect in a spot purposely designed. The emotions experienced in the garden are positive and a mild level of arousal is observed. The behavioral dimension is characterized by predominantly contemplative activities and contact with nature. A cartographic representation of the psychological and behavioral data is developed, to support the maintenance of the garden.

Immersive virtual reality as support for the mental health of elderly women: a randomized controlled trial

“…Specifically, the applied intervention significantly reduced the symptoms of depression by 46%, 21%, and 24% for stroke, cardiac, and pulmonary patients, respectively, suggesting that the intervention could be effective in patients with different medical conditions (Rutkowski et al 2021 ; Jóźwik et al 2021 ; Szczepańska-Gieracha et al 2021b ; Kiper et al 2022 ). Other studies using VR greenery have shown similar effectiveness (Boffi et al 2022 ): Chan et al ( 2021 ) showed that a short walk in a virtual forest improved the emotional state of the elderly; a recent mixed-method feasibility study demonstrated the usefulness of different nature-based VR environments in mood improvement (Kalantari et al 2022 ); and the use of the VR garden idea had positive effects on affect, well-being and stress in the face of isolation related to the COVID-19 pandemic (Malighetti et al 2022 ; Meyer et al 2022 ; Pallavicini et al 2022 ). Nevertheless, the main difference between the above research and this study was the additional implementation of psychotherapeutic elements in our intervention.…”

Virtual reality natural experiences for mental health: comparing the effects between different immersion levels

“…The current study found that VR natural experiences were found to have positive effects on individuals' mental health outcomes. Previous studies also suggested a similar result that VR natural experiences improve mental health outcomes (Boffi et al 2022;Moyle et al 2018;Veling et al 2021;. A previous randomized control trial conducted a VR nature study by watching one of six 4-min monoscopic 360° videos of natural environments on VR headsets from Monday to Saturday each week (Browning et al 2023).…”

“…Virtual parks simulate real parks with multisensory stimuli for attention and mental restoration, emotional stability, and stress recovery (Sun et al 2023). Previous experimental studies suggested that VR natural experiences across different populations could improve multiple mental health outcomes, including physiological and psychological stress indicators, affects (Allen et al 2018), relaxation, perceived restoration (Bornioli et al 2018), happiness, moods, awareness (Moyle et al 2018), emotions (Olafsdottir et al 2017), anxiety , distress, nervousness (Veling et al 2021), and depressive symptoms (Boffi et al 2022).…”

Mapping the In-Motion Emotional Urban Experiences: An Evidence-Based Method

“…As a matter of fact, the APP and the exp-EIA© method were developed to specifically foster collaborative and human-centered urban design processes with an evidence-based approach. Indeed, this tool allows users to collect, analyze, and spatialize subjective reactions to specific environments, i.e., describing the intangible features of spaces through the perspective of its users; the outcomes are presented in various forms, including geolocated psychological data [52][53][54]. When applying the exp-EIA© method via City Sense, participants have to: (1) register to the app and input their socio-demographic information, for statistical and data filtering purposes; (2) fill in a brief questionnaire related to the chosen neighborhood, including a question on how familiar they are with the area on a 5-points Likert scale and a multiple choice question with multiple select answers option concerning the main reasons for frequentation (e.g., work, shopping, social relations).…”